The U.S. Air Force has accepted the first delivery of Boeing Co.’s long-delayed aerial refueling tanker despite flaws that remain to be fixed, the service said Thursday. The first eight of 179 planned KC-46 aerial tankers in the $44 billion program will be accepted from now through February. That’s more than two years late — […]

January was kind to Boeing in terms of freighter aircraft orders – especially if you consider the 767-200C a freighter. To start, Istanbul-based Turkish Airlines converted two 777 passenger aircraft orders to freighters, and an unidentified customer ordered one 777F. As shown in the chart, this brings Boeing’s total orders for the type to 168 (including […]

Forest fire season is upon us. From Fort MacMurray in northern Canada, to California and Arizona in the US Southwest, 2016 is already hot, and aerial firefighting tankers – from BAe 146s all the way up to DC-10s are dropping fire retardant as fast as they can reload. But if US-based Global SuperTanker Services receives […]

The past week has been an interesting one for the world’s two big commercial aircraft manufacturers, with some big orders and important first flights in the headlines. As usual, some of the headlines hint at more than is actually there, but even with that caveat, the news has been good. We start with an item that, […]

Poland has called for proposals for as many as four aerial refueling tankers, and according to reports in Flight Global, Boeing is pitching the 767-based KC-46A it is developing for the US Air Force, while Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is offering a tanker-converted Boeing 767-200 fitted with its new fly-by-wire (FBW) boom to meet a Polish […]

The UK branch of European passenger charter carrier Thomas Cook will lease an Airbus A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) from the Air Tanker consortium after it is de-militarized. The Air Tanker consortium owns and operates a fleet of A330 MRTTs for the UK’s Royal Air Force, soon to include five units designated as non-core, and […]

First, the good news: The US-based manufacturer reported strong second-quarter results, with revenue up 1% to $22.05 billion and net income up 52% to $1.65 billion. The gains were driven by the company’s Commercial Airplanes division, as the Defense and Space division saw revenue fall. The Commercial Airplanes division delivered 181 airplanes in the quarter, […]